Break Repair: A Guide to Stopping a Breakup
Love me without fear
Trust me without questioning
Need me without demanding
Want me without restrictions
Accept me without change
Desire me without inhibitions
For a love so free….
Will never fly away.
~Dick Sutphen
The lessons I have learned in my life, and through my grief recovery from the death of one mate and the loss of another very special man, is that I am a whole, unique individual. I truly love myself today! I no longer feel like I need to frantically search for love, or outside affirmation, to feel complete. Through my recovery I discovered how to be a whole person for the first time in my life.
However, I also ‘delightfully’ discovered some things about love, relationships, and winning hearts. I learned the tricks to saving a relationship, and to stopping a break up, or divorce… and I have proven them to be true over and over again. And I can show you these same tricks.
I am at a place in my life right now where I have the power, within me, to not need anyone. Want, yes. But need, no! That is a very good place to be.
Recently, I have had the opportunity to be reunited with an ex. This particular ex was once the be-all of my life. The center of my Universe. When we broke up I went through every antic and tactic that I could think of in order to keep him, or win him back. Begging, pleading, promising him I would change, trying to be ‘centerfold-perfect’…etc. I was devastated by the mere thought of losing him. And I mourned the loss of “us” so deeply; the pain was so abysmal that I thought I would never, ever breathe again.
And now, here he was, begging me to come back! And I managed to get him to do this by using four very, simple ‘human-nature’ strategies and following 20 simple and basic rules as seen in adultfrienedfinder app ios.
But I didn’t want him back. Revenge is a bitch. He lost me. I am great. Ha-ha. Let him feel the pain of losing me.
(Okay, enough digs about my ex…)
See, I am in a new, and much better, relationship. One I have no intention of ever leaving – and I am very happy in my new relationship. And do you know why? Because my current mate used these very same strategies to win me back when I was planning on leaving him!
This is how it came about:
After the grief of losing two very important men in my life – one to God, and the other to another woman – I feel I wrote The Book on grief – and, in fact, I did! I wrote the ebook, How to Get Over a Breakup, many, many years ago. How to Get Over a Breakupis a great book for overcoming and understanding grief. I highly recommend it (toots own horn). Anyway, I wrote that book based on my experiences handling a breakup, and the experiences and observations of others in a broken relationship. I wish I had How to Get Over a Breakup available to me when I was mired in the deepest of despair and the black, endless depths of my own pain over a lost love.
Yet, quite ironically I learned so many inspiring lessons – and gained so much happiness through this grief.
One thing I learned is to be happy with me. I have come to the realization that I do not need anybody, and this realization has made my current relationship very different from all others. I have the attitude that “he” is replaceable. And he is! No man is an absolute ‘must have’ in my life, anymore. Yes, I love him. But I do not need him in my life. In fact, I didn’t even want him (all my past grief had left me somewhat of a commitment-phobe). I wanted to be alone. But, the relationship progressed so smoothly that I was deep into it before I realized what was going on.
And then the commitment phobic side of me panicked. I had to get out! I didn’t want a partner; I wanted to be single.
Now, here I was, a CP (commitment phobe) desperately trying to get out of a relationship that I didn’t want to be in. So, naturally, I had to convince myself it was for the best. (When a person wants out of a relationship their mind goes into a maximum ‘negative’ overdrive! They start zeroing in on the tiniest of flaws and minutest of problems and then they exaggerate these small imperfections to extreme proportions.)
And boy, did I do just that: I told myself that he had just too many flaws, issues, and problems – that he was insecure, mistrusting, controlling, demanding, etc. I wanted to be free of all these issues. No longer interested in this kind of toxic love, I was looking to be alone, or at least in a more stable, secure, and true love. A love that was quiet, without issues. Not this clinging ‘neediness’ that this man displayed to me. And the more he begged for attention, the more he needed me – the more he clung, controlled, threatened, connived, and pursued me, the more I desperately tried to get away (wouldn’t you?).
One night, in particular, I would have done anything to get away. I was suffocating! Having spent the last two days mentally planning my ‘escape’, I was ready to take flight at the slightest provocation. And, happily, that provocation came along in the form of him trying to start a fight with me by playing ‘martyr’ upon his insecurities (he was good at pulling out the ‘martyr-card’). He had become outraged, indignant, overbearing, and totally irrational. This was my cue! My time! I could now leave, have an excuse, and not feel guilty about it because it was all his doing. In my mind he was forcing me to leave him. Since it was his entire fault I no longer felt the ‘guilt’ that had been the only thing holding me hostage in the relationship.
While he sat outside raging, and full of his own ego and needs and wants, I calmly and rationally – and behind his back – got some of my things together inside. I didn’t want him to know I was leaving him because I didn’t want to have to face the uncomfortable confrontation of telling him to his face…and having to face him fighting against my choice and resisting my decision to leave him. I didn’t want to deal with his begging, and pleading, and neediness. His total sense of lack of worth without me.
So, quietly I grabbed my emergency items for the evening (toothbrush, cash, medication), mentally planning to come back when he left for work the next day, to get the rest of my belongings. And I knew then that – after I returned at a later date to get my things – I had absolutely no intention of returning to this relationship, or him, ever again.
Having done my emergency packing (hiding everything in my purse), I stealthily slipped out the front door and walking past him I calmly said, “I’m going out for a while”. I still didn’t want him to know that I was leaving him because I didn’t want to go through the confrontation that I knew would be inevitable.
He didn’t react to my proclamation that I was ‘going out for a while’ – at all. This was HIGHLY unusual, as he was always very much against me going anywhere without him. (He just couldn’t trust – anyone!)
As I precariously walked toward my car, I heard him say to me…